By Charlie Elrod, NEAFA President
November 19th was a beautiful morning as a cadre of representatives made their way by train and car from Albany and Long Island toward New York City. After several months of planning, it was finally coming together! Eighteen people, representing NEAFA, NEDPA, NYFB, the NY Vegetable Growers and the NY Horticultural Society split into three teams to make fifteen lobbying calls on NY City legislators in their home districts. NEDPA and NYFB had done a joint NYC lobby day a few years ago and felt that it led to worthwhile conversations with legislators who may not be as familiar with the issues facing NY’s agricultural segments.
Bonnie Bargstedt, Sean Dieumegard and I participated on behalf of NEAFA with the other 15 people coming from our collaborators in the other associations. Each team spread out across a couple of boroughs to make their appointments.
We prepared a document covering the major talking points which ranged from fairly general, like funding for Cornell Animal Science, to the specific provisions of anticipated legislation such as the Good Food Purchasing bill. As usual there were some that we support and others we oppose. Our talking points covered four broad categories: Budget support for agriculture, Food and nutrition security, Environmental stewardship, and Workforce development.
In several of the districts, there were food distribution events going on ahead of Thanksgiving. This was a fortunate confluence of events as it highlighted the absolute dependence on agriculture for our food supply and provided a great context for the conversations. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised that our conversations were highly productive and engaging. Talking with others on the ride home, it seems that all the groups had largely favorable discussions.
In one of the meetings I was in, Assemblymember Catalina Cruz relayed her absolute support for agriculture. She readily acknowledged that without NY farms, her constituents would have gone desperately hungry during the pandemic. From that experience, she crusaded the development of the Nourish NY program which uses state funds to purchase food from NY producers to help stock food banks across the state. After three years of annual funding, Assemblemember Cruz and Senator Michelle Hinchey wrote and helped make the Nourish NY program a permanent program, feeding hundreds of thousands of people each year while securing a market for excess food products from NY producers.
This is just one example, but the fact that we were able to have that conversation, build a bridge and connect with someone who is so passionate about her constituents AND the people who help keep them fed, gives me great optimism for continued collaboration with our state legislators. I especially want to thank Allyson Jones-Brimmer, Executive Director of NEDPA, for sweating so many of the details of this undertaking, making sure we all got there and got back home. Renee St. Jacque from NY Farm Bureau and our own Julie Marlette also shouldered the brunt of chasing legislators to get these appointments.